Unhinged
by Julia451
Summary: Post-"Southern Raiders" one-shot. Katara's still reeling from her encounter with her mother's killer, one moment questioning whether she acted like a weak coward, the next worried she wouldn't be as strong if given another chance. Zuko, who, to her surprise, has been through similar experiences multiple times, helps her through it. Not romantic but Zutarians will love it.


After the surprise at the Western Air Temple, they decided their best chance of safety lay in not staying in one place too long. When Zuko and Katara returned from their field trip, they only waited one more full day (at Aang's insistence) for Appa to rest before packing up and saying good-bye to their cliffside camp (Sokka and Suki giving the place a wistful glance that Aang didn't understand, Katara tried not to, and Zuko politely ignored).

Nobody had been more anxious to get going than Katara – since returning, she'd felt nothing but low and listless the entire time they'd stayed there. She'd figured she was just tired after the long journey that had included many sleepless nights and would feel better after a good night's sleep. The first night, she'd dreamt she was a child back in her house at the South Pole, watching the man burn her mother to death. She tried to stop him, but the water wouldn't obey her, swerving or circling around him whenever she tried to attack. Unpleasant but a familiar nighttime occurrence (albeit from several years ago) – she wasn't able to get back to sleep that night, but she didn't burst into tears or wake everyone up screaming, just sighed and rolled over, reliving the moment she'd let the ice melt and fall over and over again for the next four hours as if expecting the scene to eventually end a different way.

That didn't happen until the second night, when she found herself back on that path with him kneeling before her. He tried to run, but she held out her arm, and he stopped in his tracks, then slowly turned around. He tried to fire at her – she pointed her other arm towards the ground, and his followed. Without touching him, she twisted his limbs into the most painful contortions, threw him against the ground, curled him into a shivering ball, forced him to lie flat on his back with his arms stretched out while a sharp icicle hovered over his heart. She had just started to send it plunging into his chest when she woke up. She spent the first half of the rest of night wondering if she had forced herself to wake up before she made the kill and cursing herself for being so weak, and the second half clutching her arms tightly, trembling as her mind repeated _What am I thinking?_ and taking deep breaths between a few silent tears.

It was no wonder she had no energy for anything except dangling her feet over an abandoned dock, staring blankly down at the water, trying both to recognize herself and to calculate when she had changed so much. When had she turned into this? Why did it bother her? She was stronger now. The only thing she should regret was that she hadn't been strong enough to finish the job...!

She needed to move on, she told herself. A change of scenery would help. When they left this place, she'd leave all these miserable feelings behind with it. She'd be able to get back to work and focus on what should be her real priorities. Besides, they had agreed to follow Zuko's suggestion of heading north, where he claimed they would run into less people and, thus, less chance of being spotted or attacked. It was completely new territory to all of them, even the former prince – surely that would be interesting enough to take her mind off her recent ordeal.

The country indeed changed drastically as they went farther north. It wasn't long before they left the Fire Nation beaches and forests behind them for a desolate, rocky, sparsely vegetated, but ruggedly beautiful wilderness that seemed to be home to nothing but marshes, flowers, and the occasional koala-shepherd. Aang, who seemed to have something weighing on his own mind, as well, started to perk back up, enjoying the new sights as much as his friends. Katara wished she could join them, too, but, to her disappointment, neither the beautiful landscape nor the number of days that passed without encountering a single threat did anything to cheer her up. The nightmares were less frequent, but she still felt as empty and exhausted as she had the moment she walked away without killing him.

The fact that the others noticed and were doing their best to help (taking over all the chores and telling her to rest, not listening when she said she could work, they didn't have to do that) only made Katara feel worse. She was letting them all down, making them worry about her... They must think she was pathetic. They were right. When she wasn't working, she spent most of her time staring gloomily into space, petting Momo or pulling up grass and flowers. Anyone trying to get her attention needed to say her name at least three times. She had even given up training, using her Waterbending only for cooking and the occasional injury (Aang had stopped trying to cheer her up by asking her to show him some move he wasn't sure he'd mastered, shortly before Toph stopped challenging her to a friendly sparring match).

She was able to function – doing her part when the others would let her fetch water or unload some supplies, eating normally, sleeping no more than usual, sharing guard duty and driving Appa – just unable to enjoy anything. She couldn't get her mind to focus on the present world instead of the visions of the past. She hated them, and dwelling on them wasn't going to make them change or feel any less painful, but she couldn't shake them! Whether the ones from years ago or days ago were stuck in her head at the moment, they stole all of her attention. She hoped they might lose their strength as time went by, but so far, she could feel no change. She still felt no improvement after two weeks, when they landed in a hilly, treeless place where the ground was hidden by an endless army of short shrubs full of tiny purple flowers.

"I've never seen these before," Suki said after leaping off Appa and impulsively snapping off a branch of flowers to examine them.

Sokka did likewise. "Can you eat them?"

"Only if you're a koala-sheep," Zuko informed them. Appa proved him half-wrong by sniffing a bush near his feet, then proceeding to swallow the whole thing in one mouthful.

"Then they're useless to us," Sokka said dismissively, tossing the flowers aside. "Appa's got his priorities straight, though – I suggest we follow his example."

They began dividing up the chores – getting dinner, unpacking, making earth tents, making the fire, fetching water – leaving Katara with nothing to do. The thought of protesting was exhausting, but the thought of leaning against Appa while watching the others take care of things was hardly more pleasant. "Okay, guess I'll..." She looked around her, searching for anything the others didn't have covered. Her eyes fell on a nearby bush full of tiny, dark blue berries. "... pick some berries," she finished before walking towards them, even though they had stocked up yesterday (good thing these looked like a different type).

"You don't have to do that, Katara," Aang said quickly. "We don't need any berries tonight."

"It's okay," Katara said as she returned with a handful of the unfamiliar fruits. "These safe, Zuko?"

"Sure," the Fire Prince replied as Toph grabbed one or two out of her hand.

"Not bad," was the Earthbender's ruling on them.

"That's settled then." Katara grabbed a huge basket from their pile of supplies, dropped the remaining berries into it, and walked towards a larger patch she could see some distance away, grateful to have both something to do and some time to be alone.

Those were the two things she wanted more than anything these days. Not that they did her much good. Even now, as she walked down the line of bushes, halfheartedly filling the basket with berries, all she could see was his face. She was suddenly overwhelmed by a sense of vicious injustice. This was exactly the kind of thing letting him go was supposed to prevent! Part of the reason she had let him live was because he wasn't worth walking around with the guilt of killing a human being in cold blood, his face haunting her, for the rest of her life. If anybody had told her that _not_ killing him would result in his face haunting her for the rest of her life, she wouldn't have been so willing to spare him! Well, she deserved it – this was what she got for showing mercy to the monster who killed her mother! Who knew how many other innocent victims he'd killed? Their families would probably hate her more than they hated him if they knew what she'd done! At least _they_ had justice, given how the protector of their enemy was paying dearly for her weakness...

 _It wasn't weakness! What is wrong with you?_ Katara didn't know which she hated worse – the bouts of rage and shame at herself for not finishing her mission, or the bouts of guilt for thinking that way that followed. The second phase came quickly today. What had happened to her? After all the horror, death and destruction, pain and suffering she'd seen since she'd left the South Pole, how could she think like this? Did she want to turn into a killer like them, the monsters who did such things?

Why were those her only options – be a helpless victim who let evil go unpunished, or be a monster who hurt the innocent? She didn't want to harm innocent people like her mother, Haru's village, or the Air Nomads – she wanted to stop people from harming them! Why couldn't she punish evil people who deserved it, who caused nothing but pain and suffering and didn't deserve to live? Why was it evil to want to stop evil? To hate evil men like him? To make them pay for what they did? Maybe if more people like him _were_ punished, they'd think twice about invading villages, capturing Benders, and killing unarmed women...

Yeah, right. Even if she'd killed him, what good would it do? It wouldn't bring her mother back. It wouldn't protect anyone else's mother – there were thousands of men like him doing the same things all over the continent. Not even the Avatar could stop all of them; she certainly couldn't. Killing him wouldn't have stopped or saved anyone. She'd accomplished nothing on that trip, but if she'd gone through with it, it still would have accomplished nothing.

 _It would have made me feel better_. The thought of all the years he'd gone on living – breathing, eating, drinking, laughing, sailing, raiding, killing – after wiping out a life worth ten times his own for no reason made her sick. He didn't deserve to spend one more minute enjoying being alive! Not that he probably was – the man she'd seen cowering in front of her in the rain didn't look like he was capable of enjoying anything. But that didn't matter. He'd killed her mother, a woman who had never done him or anyone _any_ harm, because he thought his people were better than hers – it was only fair that he pay for it, and even if death was too good for him, it was the highest price this world allowed someone to pay. She ought to get back out there and finish what she'd started, and as long as she didn't go on to selfishly kill the innocent like he did, she'd have nothing to feel guilty about! Why not? There was nothing stopping her from going back.

That was something else she'd thought of dozens of times since she'd turned her back on him. There was no reason she couldn't go back and do what she should have done that day. Even if he'd skipped town by now, she'd tracked him down once – she could track him down again. If Aang wouldn't let her take Appa, she could sneak off with him like Sokka and Zuko had sneaked away from the temple. If Zuko didn't want to help her again, fine, she didn't need him. She could end this once and for all – no one could stop her. She could find him again, and this time, she'd make sure it ended the right way.

But what if she couldn't? Given another chance, would she do anything differently? Or would she be the same coward who couldn't bring herself to do what a warrior needed to do? She'd probably still be too afraid and too squeamish at the thought of killing to go through with it. Even if she found him again, she might just lose her nerve at the last minute like she had before...

But what if she didn't? (Her feelings completed the cycle again.) Given another chance, _would_ she act the same way? Would she be strong enough to resist the temptation to kill him... or would she give into it? Zuko had said nothing during the whole scene, but had him being there watching made a difference? Would she have made the same choice if she'd been alone, with no witnesses to tell those she cared about how cruel she could be? Maybe it was only pure luck that she hadn't gone through with killing him; under different circumstances, maybe she wouldn't be able to stop herself...

What if she ever _did_ run into him again?! He was still living in the Fire Nation. If he _had_ done the most logical thing after learning a vengeful assassin was after him and packed up and run for his life, wasn't there a chance their paths could cross while her group traveled in hiding in the same country? What would she do if she saw him again? Would she let him go this time, or would she...?

Katara shuddered as the images from her dreams – various versions of the alternate ending to their encounter, differing in many ways but always involving ice and blood – made her dizzy and nauseous. Forgetting about berries, she left the basket and hurried over to a hillside directly in the sunlight where she sat down, gripping her arms and trying to stop shivering.

She closed her eyes and took several deep breaths, each one full of the scent of the purple flowers surrounding her – faint, but sweet, and strangely comforting. Sitting there inhaling their fragrance and listening to them rustle in the wind seemed to soothe her. After a few minutes, she began to feel calmer and warmer. She opened her eyes but didn't get up, not wanting to disturb the moment of peace. _You did the right thing_ , she tried to assure herself for the hundredth time since Aang had said the same... but it didn't help because, even if she'd fully believed it, she had to wonder, if she found herself in that position again, would she still do the right thing?

She had no idea how much time passed before a voice called her back to the present. "Meditating?" She looked to her right and saw Zuko approaching her, one of his swords unsheathed in his left hand.

"No." He walked closer to her. "Training?"

"Sokka's demanding a rematch, one-sword-on-one. I'm just trying to plan the best way to protect my neck from accidentally getting sliced off," the Fire Prince explained before returning the sword to its sheath on his back.

"Good, because I don't think I could fix that," she tried to say nonchalantly. She must have succeeded because Zuko took it as an invitation to sit down next to her.

As if thinking aloud, Zuko said, "Wonder if your spirit water could," in the careless tone of one used to talking to himself. They both started a little and stared at each other – it was the first time since their reconciliation that someone had alluded to anything from that day in Ba Sing Se.

But for Katara, those memories were nothing in comparison to the ones that had been tormenting her for two weeks. She seized the distraction immediately. She turned away and, staring ahead of her again, said plainly, "Not unless you wait 'til we get back to the North Pole – I'm out." This reminded her of something she had wanted more than once to tell him before but had never found the energy or the right opening for bringing it up. Now was as good a time as any. She half-turned towards him and said in the same tone, "I'm sorry I didn't get a chance to help you."

She could tell the words caught him completely off guard. His dismayed expression still hadn't faded when he looked at the ground. "It's a good thing you didn't..."

"I know, but maybe..." She hesitated, having never planned to share any of the theories that had occurred to her since she'd finally started seeing him as a friend and ally instead of the enemy. But it was far preferable to what she'd been dwelling on before he came over. She went on: "Maybe if I'd gotten the chance, it wouldn't have... things would have..."

But Zuko didn't let her go into her speculation about how that day could have gone differently if this moment or that moment changed. He shook his head and said quickly, "It doesn't matter."

She was in no mood to argue with anyone about anything, but she did say, "Not anymore, no – that's over, but I really _did_ want to help you, and..."

"Forget about it – I didn't deserve it."

"Maybe not then," she agreed, unable not to think of what had followed her offer, "but now..."

He shook his head again. "That doesn't change what I did."

"No, but _you've_ changed," Katara said with the first hint of energy all conversation. "We're on the same side now, and... maybe someday, when this is over, we can go back and..."

Zuko stopped her before she could explain how she'd wondered, since they were now the friends she'd thought they were becoming months ago in the cave, why her offer back then couldn't still stand, if she could get some more water from the Oasis and heal him like she'd once planned to, finishing what they'd started: "We don't have time to worry about that right now."

"But if I could do it, would you want me to?"

Zuko had avoided looking at her for a while, but her question made him look straight at her, eyes wide with disbelief. He finally sighed deeply and said, "I don't know."

Katara rephrased the question: " _Did_ you want me to?" she noticed Zuko tense up. "If we'd gotten the chance... back then... would you have let me?"

He waited a moment before answering: "Yes, but like I told you, I didn't really think it would do anything. I still don't think it would work. It's... it's not really an injury. It's not the type of thing you can heal."

"Maybe not, but..."

"Don't worry about it. I'm fine."

Katara found that hard to believe. Now that she knew how he got his scar, she was sure it was just as painful for him as any wound she'd ever healed. All she could say, however, was, "Your choice. Just so you know..."

Zuko's voice was solemn but serene when he said, "Thanks." After a pause, he added in a more normal, relaxed tone, "But really, don't let it bother you. I'm okay."

Katara shrugged. "If you say so."

There was a longer pause, then: "Are _you_ okay?"

Katara felt her body jolt at the question. While they'd been talking, she'd almost been able to forget about the face haunting her mind. She almost said she didn't want to discuss it, but that would only make him worry, so she decided to answer the question honestly and as quickly as possible, hoping the topic would drop just as quickly on its own without her needing to ask for it. "Not yet, but I'll be fine. It takes a while, right?"

Zuko closed his eyes. "I'm sorry. If I'd known it would do this to you, I never would have told you how to find him. I thought I was helping you, but I just made things worse."

He blamed himself for this? For starting the whole thing? For taking her to him? She couldn't let him think that. "It's not your fault."

"I had no right to put you through that."

"You didn't force me to go. I wanted to do it. It was my own choice."

"I should have listened to Aang. I don't know what I was trying to accomplish."

"Then why did you do it?" Katara asked him sincerely. "Why did you think it would help?"

She couldn't tell if Zuko's silence was due to trying to figure out the answer or the best way to give it. "It's what I would have wanted. I still don't know if I'll ever see my mother again..." (Katara remembered what he'd told her about his mother disappearing when he was a child, how he didn't know if she was even still alive. He'd given no details, but she had no more right to ask for them now than she did in the cave.) "... Even if she's alive, even if I could look for her, I wouldn't know where to start. But if I found out someone killed her, I couldn't live without facing them. You deserved that chance. Since I couldn't bring your mother back, this was the next best thing. At least, that's what I told myself."

"You were right." Katara went over the words that had just occurred to her three or four times before saying them to make sure they were correct: "It's been hard, but it's better than never getting to confront him at all." She had never asked herself that before now, but she knew it was true. If she could go back in time and undo everything that had happened, stop Zuko from telling her what he knew, stop herself from ever going after him, erase any memory of ever finding the man or sparing him, that was one chance she knew she _wouldn't_ take. The alternating shame and guilt she felt now were preferable to the uncertainty, unanswered questions, and blind, relentless anger she'd lived with for years. She now knew exactly what had happened after she'd left the hut. She knew why he'd killed her. She knew who he was, what he was like, and what he'd become. She knew her mother had known what would happen and had been bravely prepared for it. It was better to know at last than to spend the rest of her life futilely wondering.

"Now I know everything I needed to know," was how she put it for Zuko. "I didn't get my revenge, but I got answers. I'm glad..." She backtracked – "glad" was the wrong word to use to describe anything related to this. "I'm relieved I got to do it. I just..." There were still those two questions that wouldn't let her rest until she'd answered them.

"Just what?"

"Nothing, I..." she started to say instinctively, but the awkwardness and embarrassment she was expecting didn't come. Katara realized that, although she couldn't bear to share her doubts on this subject with Sokka or the others, it was safe to tell Zuko. The others had all been raised as noble, honorable, heroic warriors or pacifists with high moral standards they were proud of and believed in unquestionably; they would no doubt all see it the same way Aang had – how could she ever think killing a man in vengeance was right?! – but Zuko would understand. He knew the dark side of life and had done and felt things he wasn't proud of, either; she had no fear of him judging her. If she asked any of the others whether she did the right thing or not, she was confident _all_ of them would answer, "Of course you did!" without even thinking about it (even Toph would just consider it shameful weakness to let someone have so much control over you and believe it was best to prove they didn't by getting on with your own life and forgetting about them), but she trusted Zuko's opinion on the subject would actually mean something.

Zuko waited patiently until Katara gathered the courage to confess what had been weighing on her mind: "I wonder if I did the right thing."

As she'd predicted, there was no empty, "Of course you did!" from him. Instead, he asked her, with no sign of surprise or disgust, "Why?"

"Because he killed my mother. How could I care more about sparing him than avenging her?"

"Would your mother have wanted you to kill him?"

"I don't know. But wouldn't she be glad if he paid for what he did to her?"

"Not if it hurt you."

Katara crossed her arms. "If I only spared him because I was afraid of the guilt, then I'm a coward."

"Well, you're not a coward," Zuko said matter-of-factly, "so that's not why you spared him."

Katara was never sure what prompted her to say next, "What would _you_ have done?"

Zuko raised his eyebrows at the question but otherwise didn't look like it made him uncomfortable. "I didn't do it, either."

Katara gasped as the implications hit her like a charging saber-toothed mooselion. So there was something else they had in common now... She took a deep breath and released it in a profound sigh of sympathy. She should have known – hadn't she been sure he would understand? Afraid to ask but unable to resist, she clenched her fists and whispered, "Who was it?"

"My father," Zuko answered instantly and simply, but he needed to wait a few seconds before continuing. "I went to face him on the Day of Black Sun. He was alone, powerless, and I had the perfect chance to attack him."

Only weeks later, after the comet, when the protests by those who had screamed for Ozai's execution began when they received word of his prison sentence, did Katara recall that Zuko claimed to have once had the opportunity to kill him and wonder how much pain and suffering could have been averted had he gone through with it (not angrily, just curiously, as it still paled in comparison to the potential what-ifs had he joined them in Ba Sing Se). None of that occurred to her now; in that moment, her mind, absorbed in the similarities between Zuko's situation and her own, saw the story as a personal struggle between father and son, nothing else. Her mind was in this state when she asked, "Why didn't you?"

"Because he wanted me to. Because I'd finally realized that the way he'd treated me all my life wasn't my fault – he enjoyed it. He enjoyed the power he had over me. If he could make me kill him, it would have been the ultimate victory. Everything I'd just said renouncing him and our people and their war and their cruel, brutal ways would have meant nothing. It would have proven I was no different than him, that I didn't really believe in peace or honor or kindness or any of it. I couldn't let him turn me into that. I couldn't give him that satisfaction. I couldn't let him see me as the monster he... he'd turned my sister into.

"It's the Avatar's responsibility to maintain balance and stop those who threaten it. The Avatar has the right to stop rulers, no matter how powerful, from conquering lands they have no right to. But no prince has the right to kill the Fire Lord just because he hates him. He knew that, and he'd rather die than let me escape him. If I'd killed him, there'd have been no escape. The Avatar couldn't have let me join him. I couldn't have taken the throne, legally or by force. He'd have died knowing I'd either be in prison or executed by the time his daughter finished conquering the Earth Kingdom on the day of Sozin's Comet and his nation won the war, with him memorialized as a martyr killed by his traitorous son.

"I reasoned it all out before I went to talk to him, spelled it out for myself a million times, to remind myself why I couldn't try to kill him when the time came. But I still wanted to. I wanted to be the one in control for once, to make him as afraid of me as I'd always been of him, to show him I was stronger than him, to make him pay for what he put me and my mother and sister through. But when he started taunting me and I realized that was exactly what he wanted, I knew I couldn't give into it. If I really wanted to break his control over me, I had to resist. I couldn't kill him." He turned to her. "Was I a coward?" he asked with what sounded like sincere doubt.

Katara shook her head. "No." She turned to him, as well. "You were right. You did what you had to do."

"I hope so." Now that he'd told the story, he showed no desire to dwell on it. "What were _you_ thinking when you were about to kill him?"

"I don't know _what_ I was thinking," Katara replied truthfully. "Nothing like that." Suspecting her enemy had wanted to corrupt her and would take sadistic pleasure in knowing he drove her to kill him had never entered the equation. They didn't know each other well enough for something like that to come up; he didn't even recognize her, at first, probably had never remembered she even existed before that day. She was nothing to him; he had definitely wanted her to let him live, and, unlike Zuko, she'd given her enemy exactly what he wanted. "I had no reason to hold back like you did."

"Then why did you?"

"I told you, I don't know. I wanted to kill _him_ , but... I never wanted to _kill_ anyone. But why did that matter? That shouldn't have stopped me! He _deserved_ to be killed! He didn't deserve mercy!"

"Whatever you do, please don't think showing him mercy makes you weak," Zuko said almost urgently.

"Why?"

"Because..." His voice didn't trail off but stopped abruptly as if he had nothing else to say.

"What? What is it?" Katara pressed him.

"Because that's the kind of thing my father and sister would say."

Katara hoped he didn't notice how she shuddered as she realized he was right! It was people like them who thought mercy made you weak, who could kill their enemies with no hesitation, shame, guilt, or second-thoughts. She could tell that Zuko hated that she'd made him say it, though, as if he feared it would offend her, so she made no direct comment on it. Instead, she asked, "What do _you_ think?"

Another sigh. Zuko looked like he was steeling himself to leap over a wide chasm. "I used to think... I tried to be strong like... like I thought they were, like I should have been, but I... I never..."

"But you never could be like them. Not in that way." Katara knew it was true. She would have known the day she first met him, had she not been so terrified and so certain everyone from the Fire Nation was the enemy at the time. She'd expected him and his men to burn their village and capture or kill anyone they could get their hands on. When Zuko had kept his word to Aang to leave them be and left without hurting anyone, she'd been stunned (if only she'd had time to think about it, but her friend was in danger).

"No. That's why I know how you feel. I didn't want to be weak, either. I spent years thinking I was a failure, trying to be the man my father wanted me to be." Katara watched him raise his left hand and drop it, catching himself before it could reach his scar. "I hated myself. I hated the way I was. Not for the reasons I do now. I thought there was something wrong with me. If I couldn't even finish off Zhao, what kind of warrior was I?

"Zhao?" She knew the two Firebenders had been rivals, but that was it. What was he talking about? Had something like this happened between them? Perplexed and intrigued, even if it was prying, Katara couldn't resist asking him, "What do you mean?"

To her relief, Zuko didn't seem disturbed by the question. "I got into a duel with him a few days after I met you. We already had a history; I don't know why he chose me to pick on, but I'd always hated him, and now he planned to stop me from finding the Avatar. I finally snapped. I challenged him. I won. I was about to deliver the final blow, the way it was supposed to end, either killing him or giving him a scar of his own. But I couldn't do it. I let him go. Definitely not what he would have done in my place."

Something about this story didn't make sense to Katara, but before she could try to figure out what, Zuko confused her even more by grinning and laughing at something. "To think, I actually told him I wouldn't hold back next time."

"What's so funny about that?"

"Because I did it again! Well, sort of. And that was after he tried to kill me!"

"Wasn't he always try to kill you?"

"To arrest me or humiliate me, yeah, but the only time he ever tried to actually kill me was at the North Pole. He hired those pirates from that port near the waterfall to blow up my ship."

How had none of them heard about this yet?! So _that_ was why he looked so torn up at the North Pole... Katara shook the images of him that night aside and kept listening: "He didn't even know he failed until I caught up with him after he killed the Moon Spirit. I beat him again, and, this time, I thought I was planning to kill him. I sure didn't feel like showing him mercy, and I never expected I would. But, once again, I didn't do it. There I was, standing over him, doing nothing, just like before, when the Ocean Spirit grabbed him. It didn't even go after me – I guess it had no reason to – but it pulled him off the bridge. I didn't plan to do it, it was like a reflex – I ran to him and tried to pull him back. I tried to save him."

Katara gasped, her eyes wide with fright, her hands trembling in a way they never would have had she heard this story before now. "You could have been killed!" Her fear of what could have happened, however, was nothing compared to her growing confusion. This story didn't make sense to her, either. Why did she find these two stories so hard to understand? Why didn't they add up?

Zuko merely shrugged at his possibly narrow escape from a watery grave. "I wasn't trying to be brave or anything. Whenever I look back on it, it does sound crazy. I don't know why I wasn't afraid of the Spirit. Uncle said I probably sensed it meant _me_ no harm."

"But even after everything he did to you, you tried to save him."

"He never killed someone I loved."

"He tried to kill _you_ , and you still didn't want him to die..." Katara whispered more to herself than Zuko. _Even after all that, even though he was your arch enemy, you still showed him mercy_ , she thought. _Twice. You couldn't resist. Even back then, before you changed, mercy was your natural instinct..._ That was it! That was what didn't make sense! He had spared his arch rival when he had the upper hand and tried to save the same man who tried to assassinate him. None of that fit with the way Zuko had spoken before they'd left:

" _This isn't Air Temple Pre-school. It's the real world."_

" _You_ _ **do**_ _have a choice – forgiveness." "That's the same as doing nothing!"_

" _Forgive him." "Okay... we'll be sure to do that, Guru Goody-Goody."_

If his stories were true (and Katara had no reason to doubt they were), Zuko was not the type of person who viewed mercy and forgiveness as irrational, foolish ideals that had no place in the real world. He _did_ show his enemies mercy. He didn't believe killing was always the answer. So why had he said such things?

"Mercy isn't a weakness, is it?" Katara finally asked.

"No."

"Did you think it was the morning you told me about the Southern Raiders? Or the night we left?"

Zuko gave her a knowing look, then turned away. "No."

"Then why did you say all that stuff about forgiveness being for Air Temple Pre-school?"

"It wasn't my place to lecture you about how to treat the man who killed your mother. I'd promised to give you justice and closure. If that meant you wanted to kill him, I wasn't going to stop you."

"So you lied?" Katara neither felt nor sounded angry, just bewildered.

"I didn't think so. I thought I was saying what you needed to hear, so that you knew you had my support and that whatever you did would be entirely your choice without worrying about what I thought."

"I didn't care what you thought. Not then."

"Well, I still didn't want you to think I was judging you. I had no right to tell you how to feel, and since I hated the man who could do such a thing as much as you did, I just gave into it without worrying about whether it was right or not, since that part was up to you."

Katara decided she couldn't say he had lied to her, not if he had only said those things because he had honestly wanted to support her. After all, he'd never outright told her she should kill him, he just hadn't told her that she shouldn't... which, now that she thought about it, raised an even bigger question. "I thought you wanted me to kill him."

"I wanted to help you find closure; however you got it was fine with me."

"So you didn't care whether I killed him or not?"

"He was your enemy, not mine – it was your call." It was impossible for Katara to doubt the sincerity of his tone – he wasn't dodging the question; he meant every word.

"Did you want me to spare him?"

"It was none of my business."

"But if it was up to you, what did you want me to do?"

"Whatever you wanted to do."

"So it _really_ wouldn't have bothered you if I killed him?" Zuko looked uneasy. "I won't get mad, I promise."

Not looking at all reassured, just resigned, Zuko finally answered, "Objectively, I wouldn't have liked it, but I wouldn't have tried to stop you."

"So you _didn't_ want me to kill him?" Katara had begun to suspect as much; far from being angry, Zuko's admission made her begin to feel a little relieved. Certainly more so than she had been for weeks.

" _Objectively_ ," Zuko repeated with emphasis, "no, I didn't. I've never liked killing, and I'd finally found a place where I no longer had to be ashamed of it. No, I didn't like the idea of seeing you become a killer like Azula." He closed his eyes and was evidently getting a good grip on himself. When he opened them, he added softly, "The truth is, I would have hated it."

He sounded so deeply troubled by the prospect that Katara actually started to feel sorry for him. "Then why did you work so hard to give me the chance? Why did you take me there? Why did you help me find him?"

Zuko looked her right in the eye. "Because I never thought you'd actually kill him." Katara felt a great vibration surge through her body as if recoiling from a powerful blow. It was the last thing she ever would have expected him to say. "I never would have taken you if I thought otherwise. Like I said, I had no right to stop you if you chose to kill him – nobody could judge you for wanting that after what he did – but no matter how much you wanted to, I was sure you wouldn't go through with it. I know you're not that type of person. I figured you'd find closure by facing him, and I was right."

"I threatened to kill you once." Katara hadn't planned to say it; she had no idea what made her say it.

Zuko nodded. "If you thought I was a threat, I'm sure you would have, to protect those you care about. But no one was in danger from him. You didn't need to protect anyone. You were ready to forgive me in Ba Sing Se, even after everything I'd done. You let me join the group as long as you didn't think I would hurt anyone. You're too strong to want to hurt anyone when it's not necessary, no matter who they are or what they've done, even him."

"So I _did_ do the right thing?" she pleaded

She could swear she saw Zuko smirk when he responded with, "Is that a question?"

Katara repeated the question to herself as she replayed that critical moment in her head. "It was a lot harder to resist than it would have been to give in," she said in a low but firm voice, her eyes closed. "That took a lot of strength, right?"

"Yes."

She was seeing her confrontation with him as if for the first time. "I spared him because... killing him felt like giving in. It would have been a surrender. As much as I wanted him dead, it wouldn't have given me any pleasure afterwards. It wouldn't have made me any happier. It wasn't worth it. I _didn't_ want to turn into something I'm not just to punish him. My mother wouldn't have wanted me to, either. That monster was a cold-blooded killer, and the only way to prove I was stronger than him was to show I'm _not_. It's what I would want anyone I care about to do. I did the right thing." She exhaled slowly and deeply, feeling her shoulders and neck release a mountain of tension as she did so.

"You did."

Katara narrowed her eyes at him in suspicion. "Do you really believe that, or are you just being supportive again?"

"I really believe it, but would what I think really have changed your mind either way?"

"No." He was right – she wouldn't have accepted it if he hadn't forced her to come to her own conclusion first. Zuko truly wanted her judgment to be her own, just like he'd wanted the act to be her own decision. Like he once said, no one can give you honor – you have to examine the facts and deduce what's right on your own.

When she said nothing more, Zuko said firmly, "You did the right thing, Katara. Never doubt that. Don't let anyone convince you otherwise, including yourself."

She had to smile at that. "Thanks," she said sarcastically but followed it up with a straight face and a grave, "Thank you." It was all she could say, but Zuko smiled like he understood. She wished she'd talked to him about this sooner. He'd lifted a huge burden from her shoulders. There would probably be many more instances where she'd feel uncertain about her choice, but she didn't think that relentless, unceasing, agonizing doubt would ever take over her mind again. She finally knew she'd done the right thing.

Unfortunately, that was only half of what had been weighing on her mind. In some ways, it only made her other fear worse. If she'd been right to spare him, then what if...?

She must have looked just as frightened as she felt because Zuko asked her, "What's wrong?"

Katara didn't respond right away. Now that she knew how Zuko felt about what she'd done, she was ashamed to confess the next part. That was ridiculous, of course – they both knew he had a far longer list of things to be ashamed of than she did. Still, it was a terrible thing to admit out loud. But she felt so much better since she'd started talking. Maybe finally admitting it to someone would make her feel better about this, too. "Please don't tell anyone," she whispered, not looking at him.

"Of course not," he said incredulously, as if unable to comprehend that she would ever think otherwise.

She took a moment to rally her strength, then, holding her arms tight against her body, she took the plunge. "I hate him. I hate him more than I've hated anyone in my life. I still wish he would die or suffer, somehow pay for what he did to my mother, to me, to our family. I never want to see him again, but if I did, I can't help but think... Would I... I wonder... if I'd have the strength to hold back again. I know I did the right thing before, but if I had another chance... if I was put in that position again, I don't know if I'd make the same choice."

She didn't turn to face Zuko until she was done. He was staring wide-eyed at her, but she couldn't read his expression. He didn't look disgusted, horrified, embarrassed, or afraid of how she would react when she knew what he was thinking. If she had to guess, he looked, more than anything, simply concerned. Well, it could have been worse, but it felt unpleasantly awkward. She was just about ready to tell him to forget she'd said anything when he asked, "You trust me, right?"

What? Hadn't they been over that already? Katara gave her head a quick shake to clear her confusion at the question. "You know I do."

Zuko sounded and looked even more solemn than usual, like a parent who knew he was about to die giving his child important instructions for survival, when he said, "Then trust me when I say, I know, if you ever have another chance, if you're ever put in that position again, no matter what the circumstances, no matter what else happens, no matter what else you've been through, no matter where you are – another place, another year, another lifetime – you'll _always_ make the right choice."

Hearing him say that so firmly made her feel so much lighter, so much more confident in herself. She believed him. If he thought otherwise, he wouldn't have told such a lengthy, worded lie with so much emphasis and urgency – he would have awkwardly avoided giving a straight answer at all. Or, knowing what it was like to give into temptation, he would have warned her to be on her guard. She had no doubt he believed what he said, and, as he'd seen her at her darkest moments and knew what depravity she was capable of (he was the only person who'd seen her Bloodbend in anger instead of in desperate self-defense), she trusted his judgment of the extent of her virtue.

The physical effect of his words was undeniable. Her whole body relaxed; every muscle unwound. Katara felt calmer and freer than she had since she'd screamed at him, "You can bring my mother back!" She was no longer afraid of herself.

"Thank you," Katara said for the second time that evening.

"I... didn't do anything," Zuko said helplessly with a shrug.

"You helped me find the answers. I don't have to worry about what I did or might do anymore. I mean, I probably will sometimes, but not constantly. I can let it go now."

"I..." Zuko still didn't seem to know how to respond. He eventually settled for, "I'm glad."

"Me, too," Katara said redundantly, causing them both to grin. She looked around her, suddenly struck by what gorgeous country this was. "It really is beautiful out here." Every smell, every sight, every sound seemed lovelier than ever right now. The sunlight felt so warm, the air so sweet! Her eyes roved from the sky to the ground, where they got lost in the sea of hundreds of shades of purple and pink, with occasional dots of white. She ran her left hand over the soft flowers nearest her. "Especially these," she observed, wrenching a branch of them off its home.

"You're lucky – summer's the best time of year for them."

Katara held them up to her nose and inhaled deeply. It smelled like peace, freedom, and serenity. "No kidding." She twirled the branch in her fingers, examining the flowers. "They're the greatest flower I've ever seen."

"Yeah... they're nice," Zuko said in the tone of one who hadn't thought much about the subject.

Katara sniffed them again. "What's it called?"

"Heather."

 _Heather_... why did that sound so familiar? Suddenly puzzled, Katara narrowed her eyes in concentration as she stared at the clump of flowers her hand, trying to remember...

"What is it?" Zuko asked her.

"Nothing," Katara said with a shrug. "You think dinner's ready yet?" She realized she now felt hungrier than she had for weeks.

"Probably – Sokka made that Priority Number One," Zuko explained with a grin. They stood up and walked away, Katara sticking the tuft of heather into her belt. They stopped to pick up the meager rewards of her earlier berry-picking labors, and she couldn't resist popping several handfuls into her mouth, or breaking into a run two or three times, as they made their way back to the campsite – she couldn't wait to see her brother and friends again.

The first ones they passed were Toph and Aang, deep in an Earthbending lesson that consisted of Aang hardening the soft earth into boulders and spikes and trying to hit pillars of earth Toph kept raising out of and returning to the ground. Overcome by an uncontrollable urge, Katara ran forward, opening her ever-present pouch at the same time, and shot three icicles into the centers of the three pillars currently standing. "That felt good," she panted. It was the first time she'd used her Waterbending for combat since that day. "Nice work, Aang – keep it up!" She hurried on before either of the Earthbenders could ask what had just happened.

As Zuko caught up with her, she was softly musing aloud, "Aang's Earthbending's really improved," and beaming with pride in a way no one had seen since she'd returned.

Zuko turned back to look at their pupil. "So is his Firebending."

Out of nowhere, Katara said, "He looks up to you, you know."

It would appear he didn't. "Really?"

"Yeah – he talks about what a great teacher you are all the time. It used to annoy me, but now..."

She didn't need to explain why. "Now you know you can trust me."

"I was going to say, now I know what he means." They stopped walking and turned to face each other, Zuko looking confused, Katara smiling with gratitude. She folded her hands and gave him the bow of a pupil to teacher. "Thank you for the lesson, Sifu Zuko." She almost giggled at the way Zuko blushed and looked like he was struggling for a reply but ultimately took pity on him and changed the subject. "It's amazing how much Aang's learned from you and the dragons."

"Uh, yeah..." The comment made Zuko no less flustered – he always got a little nervous when the dragons were mentioned, often doubting if his and Aang's reasoning that the secret was safe with the rest of Team Avatar meant it had been okay to tell them.

"What were they like?" Katara asked him.

"Huh?"

"The dragons. What was it like meeting them?" She had still been furious at Zuko when they'd returned from their field trip, even more furious about him living under the same roof, and, thus, not very interested in hearing how he had bonded with her best friend, but now, she was suddenly bursting with curiosity about the dragons they'd discovered.

Zuko looked ahead like he was searching for the right words on the horizon. "It... it's hard to explain. If you've seen pictures, you know what they look like, but pictures and scrolls can't tell you what it's like being in their presence. And when they unleashed that fire... there's no way to describe it. You had to be there."

"I _should_ have been there," Katara said with a certainty as odd to her as it was to Zuko, her hand involuntarily grasping the sprig of heather at her belt as the mouthwatering smell of roasting goose-grouse led them to the campfire, both feeling like they'd been on an even longer and far more grueling but equally more satisfying journey than their last one.


End file.
